Riverbank Tales
by lexiaarcadia
Summary: HM Friendship fic in response to Hawkeyesmartini story challenge Number 7. Hawkeye finds a friend in the loneliness of night. Feedback, as always totally appreciated. Flames will be used to warm me up. English english is used as thats where I live.


Title, Riverbank Tales.

Author, Radar Hunnihawk

Rating, PG.

Summary. H/M Friendship fic in response to Hawkeyesmartini story challenge Number 7. Hawkeye finds a friend in the loneliness of night. **__**

**__**

Margaret observed Hawkeye as he sat alone on the bus. Thanks to a forest fire heading towards camp they where forced to bug out. In turn they we're forced to get back on the bus. The very same bus where that baby incident happened. The same baby incident that caused Hawkeye's precarious hold on his sanity to slip and as a result spend time in the Souel giggling academy. So it was understandable that Hawkeye looked very shaken. Margaret didn't think he should be alone and decided to do something about it. She quickly moved across the aisle and sat next to him.

"Pierce are you okay?" She asked.

He jumped, the sound of her voice breaking him away from his thoughts. He looked on the verge of tears. He had had that look since he came back and discovered BJ had been sent home. He gulped and took a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm his heartbeat down. In short if anyone looked desperately in need of a hug it would be Hawkeye. Hawkeye shook his head, he did not trust his voice to remain steady at that moment in time. He finally looked at her when she took hold of his hand. She noticed it was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She asked him softly.

Hawkeye's response was to sigh as he scrunched his eyes shut. He looked like a school child trying to be brave. "It might help."

"Claustrophobia." He mumbled he was only partially lying. He was in the midst of a claustrophobia attack after all. Margaret smiled sympathetically at him. It was another bug out that revealed his fear of confined spaces. They had to bug out to a cave and he had had a case of the shakes then as well. Now Margaret thought about it there had been a number of occasions she had felt him trembling, the aid station, when they had become comrades in arms and now here. However Margaret correctly suspected that it was not claustrophobia that was the sole cause of his fragile state at the moment.

"It shouldn't be that much further now. We will be out of here soon." She used her thumb to stroke his hand in an attempt to sooth his jangled nerves. She was right. Within minutes they had reached their new destination. Hawkeye was first off the bus. Margaret didn't mention the fact that she found him later retching over an oil barrel.

Hawkeye knew he needed to vent to somebody. He was sat in the Swamp later that night. BJs absence was making its presence felt due to the fact that his sleep talking drowned out Charles attempts to break the world record in snoring. Hawkeye was having trouble sleeping. He had trouble sleeping ever since Sidney made him realise babies definitely are not chickens. Hawkeye groaned in frustration as he kicked the blankets off his exhausted form and hunted for his boots. Once the boots where retrieved and securely on his feet he found himself walking to a nearby river. He found something comforting in it. It was similar to the one back home in Crabapple Cove. It really was extremely beautiful especially under the blanket of stars. Hawkeye laid by the bank just taking in the calm. It was in stark contrast to the storm his thoughts where creating. His thoughts where too fast to keep up with he found himself thinking and he found a certain irony in that. He heard someone else approaching, something just told him it was Margaret. That something being his nostrils as he breathed in the smell of her perfume. He sat up, slowly, he didn't want to add a head rush to his list off woes. Margaret sat down beside him and surprised him by wrapping her arms around his almost too thin form. He rearranged himself in her arms so his head rested on her shoulder. It was so nice being held for a change.

"Everyone always leaves me except you. Why is that?" He found himself asking her breaking the silence.

Margaret considered this for a moment. "Because you are always there when I needed someone." She answered, a rare moment of emotional purity from her.

"My Mom was the first to leave. I was only ten. Or rather she was taken. Maybe that's it, people don't leave they are taken from me. Cancer took my mom away, the army's wonderful sense of timing took Trapper and BJ away. Only that doesn't work with everyone. She left off her own accord. She left twice. At least she said goodbye, well the second time, in her own fashion. Is there something about me that screams reject me?" Hawkeye pondered out loud.

Margaret sensed that she was in store for A Hawkeye Pierce rant that she had grown to love and hate in equal measures. She knew it was a waste of breath to try and say something but she found herself trying anyways.

"No. Maybe you have just had rotten luck."

"Nope, I definitely have something saying, love me use me reject me." Hawkeye's voice was barely at a whisper. Margaret had to strain to hear his words. " I miss my mother. When I was a kid I would go to the creak that's behind my father's house and talk to her. Dad found me one day and after that it just didn't seem the same. That was our place you know. When something bugged me I would go to the creak and she would find me and hold me. Its been so long."

Margaret could see how painful it was for Hawkeye to talk about his mother. She wordlessly adjusted her hold on him and held onto him tighter.

"She had this thing about me calling her ma'am and dad was always to be called sir. That's the first thing that flashed through my mind when I got my draft notice, I wouldn't call another person that, didn't even do it at school." He mumbled lost in the memory of his mother. Margaret got a glimpse of understanding now.

"That's why you never addressed me as ma'am!" She exclaimed.

"I know it seems silly but I just couldn't do it." He sounded like he was crying. He adjusted his head so it was under her chin as he sniffed. "I miss her. You want to know who else I miss?"

Margaret could now feel his tears flowing. She gently wiped one away. "Who?" She asked softly. She expected the answer to be BJs or Trapper .Maybe even Henry. Seems like Hawkeye was full of surprises though.

"Tommy." He answered, his voice sounded hollow this time.

Margaret wracked her brain quickly trying to recall who Tommy was. Then she realised. Tommy Gillis, Hawkeye's friend from school. He had arrived with a load of casualties and had died on the table in OR. Not just any table but Hawkeye's table.

"You know there was nothing you could do for him?"

"Yes there was. Another time, another place. I HATE THIS DAMN WAR!"

Hawkeye yelled out into the night startling a few ducks and a dog.

"Pierce, hush your going to have everyone else awake." She gently chided him.

Hawkeye took a deep breath to calm down, his anger leaving just as sudden as it arrived. "Tommy was great. He would always just be there. He was kind of like Trapper in that sense, gone when I needed him to be gone, around when I needed company. Apart from now. No damn note, no phone call anything. He would let me lean on him, if he wasn't here I truly think I would have lost my mind. Well sooner. I don't think I will ever get it back now you know?"

"Your doing great. " Margaret quickly cut him off, trying to assure him. "You were impressive today in the OR."

"Are you kidding me? I was in a cold sweat, I was up to my knees in panic. I don't know if I can do this anymore. How come BJs got to go home and I didn't? I've been here twice as long as he has. I don't think I will ever get home you know. I know one thing, after this that's it I'm done with surgery."

"WHAT?" Margaret exclaimed quickly. "You can't, it would be such a waste of talent."

"So what? I cant do this anymore Margaret. I don't think it would be the same, after spending an eternity patching up kids who should be home eating there moms apple pie not turning other school kids insides into spaghetti."

Margaret didn't have an argument for that as she felt him tremble in her arms. Something was troubling her, he had opened up to her about a lot, and maybe he would answer this for her.

"Hawkeye?" She asked softly breaking the comfortable silence that had eventually enveloped them.

"Hum" He mumbled sleepily. He was tired now. Getting that off his chest had helped.

"You mentioned someone before. Left you twice?" She flounced around for the words; she was not sure how to proceed. Hawkeye did it for her.

"Ah her, but she does not really leave me. Carlye Breslin." He sounded in a place far away. "Sorry Lieutenant Walton I should say." He sounded bitter. The name rang a bell to Margaret.

"You mean one of my nurses….." She started.

"Yeah. I used to live with her whilst I was on residency. She was the one or so I thought. She didn't feel the same , first time she just left without a note or a goodbye or anything. Then she walks back in my life, takes my heart, tramples it into a thousand pieces, informs me she's married and gets herself a transfer out. And she wasn't the only one."

Margaret had no idea that Hawkeye could be so sensitive when it come to matters of the heart. He rattled off a list of familiar names.

"And then not one of my best friends but two. BJ knew how tore up I was when Trapper did it and he does it himself."

"BJ really did try. He barely had time to say so long and get his stuff packed up before he hitched his lift. As for Macintyre he held on to the last possible moment."

"I know. I know and it doesn't make it any easier, i'm glad they made it home, honestly but something inside me says it should have been me."

Margaret could emphasise with that. They had been there for the long haul, it had been hard enough for her and she was there by choice. Anytime she wanted out she could have gotten her father to pull a few strings or resigned her commission. Hawkeye simply could not. The army had his butt in a sling no matter what he did. He stayed he was stuck there, he deserted then he would be flung in Leavenworth which was something nobody wanted to happen. Margaret almost laughed out loud, at one point in time she would have actually schemed to make that happen.

"It will be you soon, we all will get to go home soon." Margaret whispered.

"Yeah, maybe in body but I don't think I truly will leave this place. I've changed over here, you have, and we all have. You for the better, me for the worst." Hawkeye pondered out loud. Again Margaret was rendered speechless as the half truth of his words rang around her head. They sat like that for a long time, watching the stars disappear as the sun made its apperance. The next time Margaret looked at Hawkeye he seemed to have found a temporary truce between overactive mind and exhausted body. In other words he had fallen into a peaceful dose. Margaret smiled softly as she kissed his forehead gently.

A lot can happen in a few days. BJ arrived back utterly defeated, Sidney and Hawkeye talked again and things seemed to have settled back into some sort of routine. Then the order to bug out back to there usual location came. Everyone did what they had to do and soon it was time to get back on the bus. This caused some issues, namely finding Hawkeye to get him back on the bus. It was Margaret who found him back by the river. He was shaking again, still not over the image of the baby who just stopped screaming thanks to its mother's hand. Sherman watched as Margaret talked to him and he protested in till finally she pulled him towards her and put the lips on him. It was quick but not short enough to be chaste. Then hand in hand she dragged him towards the bus, deposited him in a chair and plonked herself down next to him. They held hands the entire journey back.

"About time." Was Sherman's only thought on the matter as the bus pulled away.


End file.
